MxMIndia

Category: Digital

  • The Australian series will be seen across TV, Internet and Mobile platforms

    Star World to showcase Packed to the Rafters digitally ahead of TV launch next week

    By A Correspondent

     

    Star World is all set to air Packed to the Rafters for the first time in India. Packed to the Rafters’ is an Australian drama series which revolves around the story of the Rafter family, who are fighting different problems of life together.

     

    To make the show more relatable to the audience, Star World got Karan Johar as the face of its campaign. The channel launched a six week on-air campaign with him. And the channel has unleashed robust print, digital, DTH, cinema, radio and OOH campaign given the launch next week.

     

    In keeping with the growing importance of the digital platform, the channel will be hosting a Web Premiere across the Star World website (www.starworld.in/PTTR) and other social networking sites to give the viewers an experience of the show before it goes on air. Star World will be taking such initiatives up for key shows to create reach and buzz. The digital premiere will be held today (November 30) before its official launch on the channel on December 4.

     

    Subsequently, each of the episodes of the show will be available to be streamed and viewed on the Star World web and WAP platforms after it telecast on air. A tie-up with Vodafone will ensure viewers can catch up on the key moments of the show at their convenience.

     

    Commenting on the show, Rasika Tyagi, Senior VP, English Programming, Star India said, “From our Hindi and Regional GECs, one of the biggest learnings is that viewers seek life lessons from the daily soaps they watch. The issues faced by the Star World audience, the English speaking, urban Indian youth, is quite myriad and they don’t get to see shows which reflect their life on TV. Our audience will be able to resonate with the issues faced by the characters in Packed to the Rafters and emulate the way they resolve the conflicts.”

     

    Commenting on the digital catch-up service, Rasika Tyagi said, “When we go for consumer home visits, we get a reality check on how content is being viewed by the youth today. They want to watch a show at their convenience – anywhere, at any time. So, we as content providers have to gear up to share our content across platforms, on internet or on mobile.”

     

  • The Mumbai-based agency bags Rs 6 crore account for print and radio advertising

    Maya Digital awards Eggfirst creative duties for in-studio traning prog

    By A Correspondent

     

    Leading animation and VFX studio Maya Digital Studio has awarded Eggfirst the mandate to drive its creative duties for its training programme, MIST (Maya In-Studio Training).

     

    “MIST is a launch pad for the young studio professionals and hence we are leaving no stone unturned to make sure the communication reaches our TG. The media mix will comprise Digital primarily backed up with radio and print, along with the BTL activations. To add to the mix, we would have an interactive media platform to communicate with the TG for easy dissemination of information. It is a new format innovation and we are confident it will help us connect with the young minds better,” said Dev Datta, Marketing Head of Maya Digital

     

    “There are several animation training institutes out there with good credentials and reputation. But what differentiates MIST is the opportunity to work on live projects of Maya Digital Studio. That’s what gets students a true beginning into careers on live real work. And that’s what Eggfirst was able to translate aptly into creative. Once the campaign is released shortly, you’ll see then strategic accuracy in the creative,” said Aruna Kumar, Head – Studio Ops.

     

    Eggfirst invested its energies in getting the core messaging right. Ashish Banka, VP – Eggfirst, said, “We realized that animation aspirants are looking at something more than just training; they are seeking a live experience. And there was the match between the expectation and the promise.”

     

    The campaign is scheduled to launch in a few weeks from now with a media-mix that predominantly involves print and radio.

     

  • The new website will be loaded with innovative applications including the 'Hungama Music Cloud' technology

    Hungama.com revamps website

    By A Correspondent

     

    Digital entertainment e-store Hungama.com has announced the launch of its revamped website www.hungama.com. The new website allows users to stream free as well as buy the very best of Indian and international content, including music tracks, music videos and streaming full-length movies.

     

    The new website is powered by HTML5 technology which will provide a vivid user interface, multiple music applications and easy social connect options; allowing users to sign on through various social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google and get real-time social feeds. The latest upgrade also means HD quality streaming and downloading options for music and movies along with easy access to music through the innovative cloud technology. The site is currently running in its beta version.

     

    The revamped website will be loaded with the following features:

    Streaming: Hungama.com is the only entertainment storefront that allows the consumer to not only buy and download content, but also stream entertainment content for free.

     

    Music Cloud: India’s first Music Cloud will be based on a freemium model. The service allows consumers to save files on the Cloud, which they can seamlessly access via their connected devices- PCs, Mobile Smart Phones, Laptops, Tablets and connected TVs.

     

    Playlists: The new website will offer users different editorial playlists and artiste radio. Users will be able to create their own playlists, save it and share their playlists on social media platforms.

     

    Social Media Integration: Social Media integration will be on following fronts – Use your Social Login to browse and buy content from hungama.com. Consumers can also share their favourite content – Songs, Albums, Videos, Wallpapers with their peer group over social networks and follow members activity to check out what their friends are up to.

     

    Music Discovery: This exciting new feature allows users to discover new music based on user preferences – Mood, Tempo, Category, Genre, Era- a great way to explore the unheard!

     

    Personalization: Favoritization of songs and saving one’s preferences is now possible. New improved ‘My Accounts’ section to display user account details, content downloaded, plans availed, credits remaining, movies watched etc. all in one section.

     

    The revamped website is accessible via Web, mobile apps and through social media options. In addition to the digital platforms, the content of Hungama.com can also now be accessed through its retail touch points, ‘Hungama Oxigen’ retail points, across the country.

     

  • Indian music service Saavn has announced the launch of its new advertisement platform, Impact, which enables brands to identify, connect and engage with its users

    Saavn launches new ad platform

    By A Correspondent

     

    Indian music service Saavn has announced the launch of its new advertisement platform, Impact. This platform enables brands to identify, connect and engage with its 10.5 million users in India and across the globe.

     

    Impact is an innovative approach to digital and mobile advertising that gives brands 100 percent share-of-voice. Using Impact, brands get complete and exclusive access to all advertisement units on the Saavn web site and mobile apps for a set time period. These include Custom Skin, Web Display, Web Audio, Mobile Spotlight, Mobile Display, and Mobile Audio. Impact is a powerful model that allows brands to build positive associations with their products and services through music. The model has proven to create strong brand awareness, shape brand preferences and increase purchase consideration through undivided mindshare of listeners of Saavn across platforms.

     

    “In India, we all know that music plays an integral and meaningful part in every individual’s life. Impact is a powerful solution that enables the advertisers to build an emotional connection with their target audience during a passionate, social and engaging musical experience,” Vinodh Bhat, co-founder and CEO of Saavn, said. “The Saavn Impact model is based around engagement, curation and social sharing rather than the archaic click-through. Brands are able to measure ROI in meaningful ways, such as increases in perception, awareness, recall and purchase intent. The byproduct of our strong focus on the consumer experience is helping brands grow their businesses.”

     

    Some of the major brands utilizing Saavn to reach million of engaged users in India include: Samsung, Lay’s, Pantene, Pepsi, Nokia, Vodafone, Airtel, Hyundai, Domino’s Pizza, 7Up, Nielsen, MakeMyTrip, Max NewYork Life, Google Plus, Nokia, Vanish, Groupon, Intel and several others.

     

    Saavn delivers a comprehensive catalogue of Bollywood, Indian and regional South Asian music, licensed from more than 200 content providers. Saavn users can search, browse, and play a catalog of more than 1 million tracks; create and save their own playlists; and share their music tastes seamlessly via Facebook.

     

  • WATMedia's annual event will witness participation of prominent visionaries discussing topics that contribute to the growth of digital and advertising space

    WATSummit ’13 to discuss new era of digi mktng

    By A Correspondent

     

    WATMedia has announced its annual event, WATSummit that brings together eminent personalities to confer the evolving facets of social and digital industry. In its third edition, the theme of WATSummit 2013 is ‘A New Era of Digital Marketing’. The annual summit that is scheduled to take place on 15th Feb, 2013 at The Orchid Hotel, Mumbai, will also host WAT Awards 2013, wherein, thought leaders of Web, Advertising and Technology will be awarded.

     

    WATSummit 2013 will witness participation of prominent visionaries discussing topics that contribute to the growth of digital and advertising space.

     

    A panel of experts will be seen highlighting the prominence of social media with ‘Social Media Marketing – Making sense of jibber-jabber by brands’. The evolution of ‘Digital Media Marketing – Can it build a brand on its own?’ will be discussed extensively by a panel comprising Digital Agencies and Brands.

     

    The summit will also bring to light the E-commerce industry and the upspring of mobile marketing with in-depth discussion on topics like ‘Ecommerce Market build brand V/S build business’, ‘Mobile Marketing – Promises of reach V/S Actual Impact’. The final panel will be seen conferring the do’s and don’ts and the challenges of ‘Startup Marketing – Breaking the cluster and creating a Brand’.

     

    Sharing his views on the third WATSummit, Rajiv Dingra, Founder & CEO, WATMedia Pvt Ltd said, “I am pleased to announce WATSummit 2013. The response to the earlier summits has been encouraging, which brings us to its third edition. This year, at WATSummit 2013, we aim to emphasize on the new era of digital marketing. The medium has grown exceptionally over the past few years and brands and consumers across the world consider the digital medium a dominant tool. I am delighted with the participation of renowned speakers who will share their profound knowledge. With WATSummit 2013, our endeavor is to embark on a digitally successful journey.”

     

    The keynote speakers for the event include dignitaries such as Suresh Reddy – Chairman & CEO, Ybrant Digital & Neville Taraporewalla – Country Director, Advertising and Online- Microsoft Corporation.

     

  • Burson-Marsteller study finds huge missed opportunity for country promotion on Twitter

    @India, living in China: Burson-Marsteller finds out

    By A Correspondent

     

    When everything else, or so it seems, is “Made in China”, why should India’s Twitter handle not originate from there? The fact that it has not happened by design is – or should be – a source of embarrassment for the Incredible India peddlers, for this is a strange fact unearthed by Burson-Marsteller – that the @India account is owned by an Indian person living in Guangzhou, China.

     

    The public relations and communications firm has released the second part of its “Twiplomacy” study (http://twiplomacy.com), looking specifically at country branding on Twitter. The study shows that only 9 governments out of 193 UN member states own their country name Twitter handle.

     

    In the case of @India, the account owner shares pictures from his daily life and has made it clear that his Twitter handle is not for sale. With respect to other social media channels, India is one of just 19 YouTube channels owned by the tourism office.

     

    The accounts of @GreatBritain, @Israel, and @Sweden are the most significant examples of country promotion on Twitter. @GreatBritain is part of the ‘Britain is Great’ campaign launched in March 2012 to highlight everything that is great about the United Kingdom.

     

    @Israel is the country’s official Twitter channel, maintained by the Foreign Ministry’s Digital Diplomacy Team. The account is one of the most followed country accounts with more than 66,000 followers and serves as the focal point for Israel’s government Twitter activity.

     

    The Twitter accounts of @AntiguaBarbuda, @Barbados, @Lithuania, the @Maldives, @SouthAfrica, and @Spain are run by their respective official tourism organisations to promote tourism in each country.

     

    However, three out of five country accounts are either protected, dormant, inactive, or suspended and almost half of the 71 remaining active accounts are tweeting an automated news feed broadcasting news about the country.

     

    “Looking at the findings it becomes clear that few governments and tourism organisations have understood the power of country branding and marketing on Twitter,” said Matthias Lüfkens, head of the Burson-Marsteller EMEA Digital Practice. “There is a huge opportunity for countries to use Twitter as part of their communications to engage with a large and growing audience.”

     

    Data used was taken in November 2012 looking at the Twiter handles of the 193 UN member countries. Burson-Marsteller used Twitonomy (http://twitonomy.com) to analyze tweeting patterns and the Twitter history of each account.

     

    To access the complete analysis of these findings, visit: http://twiplomacy.com/country-promotion.

     

  • Email is a great way to reach out and stay in touch… but it is also only too easy to make the mistakes that make people mad. Vidya Heble has a shortlist of what to avoid

    The Anchor: 5 ways to piss people off via email

    By Vidya Heble

     

    Email is a great way to reach out and stay in touch… but it is also only too easy to make the mistakes that make people mad. Here’s a shortlist of what to avoid

     

    #1 Signature

    Coloured, no. Bold, no. Large font size, no. Lots of words, no. JPEGs or GIFs that some mail programs turn into attachments, certainly no. If your company has foisted a signature upon you, nothing you can do about it. But if you choose to do it, if you must have a signature, keep it simple, informative, and to the point.

     

    #2 Font

    It sounds unbelievable that people still use Comic Sans. In purple. And bold, and a large font size. Chances are, the formatting was done by someone about three generations up the chain who had discovered Microsoft Word and the delights of a colour monitor. And never got over it. But hey, YOU can click “send as plain text” or something like that, or just select all (ahem, Ctrl +A) and make the font something sober like Calibri or even, heck, Times. In a normal sort of size, and black. If the email is worth sending on, it’s worth doing this much.

     

    #3 Subject line

    If you yell “Must Read!” – and, worse, do it in all caps – the recipient may do just the opposite. Because chances are you are forwarding someone seven generations up the chain who first screamed “Must Read!”, and that forward has probably already reached your audience through other sources way before your breathless email. And it has probably reached them twice, at least. Seeing “Must Read!” may just make them go Aargh! So, if you are forwarding something that you liked and you would like your friends to read (assuming you still want them to be your friends after this), take the trouble of saying something about the content of the email in the subject line.

     

    #4 Tone

    This is a true story. No, really, it happened to me. A PR person visited our editorial offices and met each person who she thought was important, in turn. We found it a bit amusing but we went along as we believe in encouraging young things. About two emails later, in the next couple of days, she says this to me suddenly, in an email with no other salutation or ending: “Listen, why don’t you interview XYZ?” I may have imagined the punctuation in that sentence but those were the words (XYZ was a client’s CEO). That was supposed to be her interview pitch. Even I, with the kindest of hearts, could not look kindly upon this. I was only one among many other journos. Not her bosom buddy. Even if I had been, an interview pitch is an interview pitch and this is not how it is written. So, make sure your tone is appropriate to your email’s contents.

     

    #5 And, of course, spam

    A baby was miraculously saved from a rare disease. A little girl is dying and needs your email to survive. You can win untold riches from Microsoft with just one little forward. Changing room mirrors have cameras behind them and there are gangsters in the parking lot and the world is going to end because NASA said so. Drop it, get a grip, and stop spamming people with lies, damned lies and bullshit.

     

  • Excerpts from an Ernst & Young report based on a survey of 34 global M&E titled 'How CEOs are Embracing Digital Growth'

    How M&E CEOs are embracing digital growth

     

    After years of uncertainty and caution in the digital world, CEOs are now more optimistic than ever about the digital future, notes leading consulting firm Ernst & Young. “This was the primary theme that emerged from our 2012 CEO study, in which 34 CEOs from leading global media and entertainment companies shared their views on how the industry will benefit from the digital future.The CEOs we interviewed represent leading global companies with combined annual revenues exceeding US $300 billion.”

     

    Five industry captains from India were among the 34 interviewed. These being: Messrs Ravi Dhariwal, CEO-Publishing, Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd; Sudhir Agarwal, MD, DB Corp; Sanjay Gupta, CEO and Wholetime Director, Jagran;  Tony D’Silva,  Group CEO, Sun Network (now with the Hindujas) and Punit Goenka, MD and CEO, Zee.

     

    Excerpts from the report:

     

    Four key actions from CEOs
     

    1. Focus on the customer.

    “The world’s greatest company will have the customer at the center.” “Having a direct relationship with the consumer will translate into new revenue stability and growth.” “Companies understanding and concentrating on the consumer’s need will do better than those that concentrate inwards.”

     

    2. Create differentiated content.

    “First, second and third things will be the creative success of our brands and studios.” “Being able to navigate the waters with compelling, cost-efficient movies that people have to see.” “Strong content delivered in exciting ways.”

     

    3. Deliver a seamless experience to the customer across all devices, platforms and geographies.

    “We are looking to be with the customer all day with tablet, iPhone(R), online and IPTV.” “Providing seamless delivery of all content on a global basis.”

     

    4. Recruit and retain the right people. They will be the ones who will drive success.

    “Digital reduces the number of levels of hierarchy, allowing the CEO to interfere in debates that are not necessarily his.”

    “Our company needs to become more horizontal and less vertical.” “I want my people and teams to (1) be well-grounded, (2) be competitive with a desire to win, and (3) take responsibility and be decisive.”

     

    Courtesy: Ernst & Young Media and Entertainment practice (http://www.ey.com/IN/en/Industries/Media-Entertainment)

     

    The 34 media and entertainment CEOs interviewed for Ernst & Young’s 2012 CEO study are optimistic about the opportunities in today’s digital world. They see digital as key to their revenue and margin growth. It is their present and their future. This contrasts with E&Y’s 2008 study, which showed that CEOs were more tentative about digital’s potential.

     

    However, every path has its risks. In addition to sharing their insights into the opportunities digital offers, CEOs also admit they face challenges.

     

    Getting the consumer to pay fair value and developing their “digital muscles” across the front, middle and backoffice continue to be key focus areas for media and entertainment companies.

     

    And yet, CEOs are meeting these challenges head-on and are regaining control of the reins of their future long-term growth. In today’s rapidly changing digital marketplace, CEOs remain undeterred about the role digital will play in their companies’ future

     

    Summary of key points

    CEOs are optimistic about digital. They are no longer tentative about digital. They see opportunities for growth in both revenues and margins.

     

    Connected technologies drive growth and create transformative digital ecosystems. This growth is being driven by connected technologies that are, in turn, creating transformative ecosystems.

     

    CEOs are thoughtful about where to invest. CEOs currently see new distribution methods and new types of content as the most attractive investments. CEOs see these investments as central to setting them apart from their competition.

     

    Exploiting digital opportunities comes with challenges. CEOs are working to make sure customers pay a fair price for content, and they are building the competencies in their back, middle and front office to maximize their advantage in a digital world.

     

    Digital drives double-digit growth

    Today, CEOs see digital as a core part of their business, as well as a key driver of growth. As one respondent commented: “everything we do is digital.”

     

    Definitions of what constitutes digital can vary by subsector and even by companies within a sub-sector. With this caveat, CEOs were asked what impact digital would have on their own company’s revenues and margins over the next three years. Sixty-four percent of study participants expect digital to drive revenue growth of 10% or more. Forty-eight percent of CEOs also expect margins to increase by 10% or more in the same time frame.

     

    This compares to the 2008 study, where CEOs were more focused on protecting their traditional business than pursuing digital opportunities. One respondent worried that “digital media may not be as economically attractive as old media.” Another suggested that “media is trading analog dollars for digital dimes.” For many, digital media was still viewed as a new frontier – a place only for gamblers willing to take a chance on the unknown.

     

    Intuitively, there is a prevailing belief that digital margins should be higher because media and entertainment companies no longer have the cost of physical distribution. In the short-term, investments required in infrastructure to enable digital will tend to drive margins lower. However, that is only in the short-term. Once companies have the required digital infrastructure in place, we expect their margins will rise.

     

    Tablets and smartphones are driving growth

    So what is driving this double-digit growth in digital revenue and this foundational shift in consumption? When CEOs were asked which technologies they see having the greatest impact on their individual sectors, 79% suggest tablets, 62% say smartphones. The impact these devices have on the consumer experience is obvious to each of us in our daily lives.

     

    These devices are supported by the technology that respondents see as having the third biggest impact on the media and entertainment industry in the next three years: cloud hosting services and digital lockers.

     

    When CEOs were last surveyed in 2008, consumer tablets were not even on the market, cloud computing was a niche product and smartphones were focused on email and texting as opposed to video and apps. Today, more digital content across more platforms and available on more devices has created new and significant monetization opportunities for media and entertainment companies.

     

    Conclusion

    CEOs have a clear vision of a digital world

    When CEOs survey the future, they see the opportunities that digital media presents. Whether it is B2C or B2B, the direct relationship that applications, ecosystems and technologies enable is fundamental to their vision. It is about the ability to drive an outstanding consumer experience by offering differentiated content on an array of platforms and devices, anytime, anywhere.

     

    Their success will depend on how quickly they can optimize their back, middle and front offices to overcome challenges they face – getting consumers to pay fair value, managing content and optimizing their supply chains.

     

    It will also depend on their people. It will depend on having the right people with the right skills to win in a fast-paced, ever-evolving digital landscape.

     

    Once a gambler’s enterprise, CEOs today see digital as necessary for future long-term growth. Undeterred by their challenges, CEOs are optimistic and they have greater confidence their companies can take full advantage of the opportunities that exist in today’s digital world.

     

  • The gaming application marks another successful digital marketing campaign for Homeshop 18

    MindShift launches gaming app for Homeshop18

    By A Correspondent

     

    MindShift Interactive, digital research and marketing firm has launched Land of Luck, a gaming application for Homeshop18.com, to engage consumers online. The four-level game that ranges over a span of 45 days allows fans and participants to explore various lucky charms through their journey, shop through Homeshop18’s offerings within the game and win exciting prizes, leading onto winning the luckiest person prize too with an international holiday of the players choice.

     

    Users could participate through the Land of Luck microsite or use the Facebook application. The score in the first level, spread over 26 days converted into time that allows users to Shop in the second level, ‘Mall of Luck’. Users were given 11 lists comprising of various products that they need to shop from the Mall in a given time and then select the same products from HomeShop18, sharing their favourite brands. This level of over 15 days enabled winners to win an iPad or Samsung Galaxy S3, thus, resulting in an increase in visits onto the website as well. The third phase allowed users to put their names in the lucky jackpot which was an entry point for the international holiday phase. The fourth and final level was a four-day activity where users answered ‘What made them the Biggest & Luckiest Fan’. The answer with the maximum Votes won an International Holiday.

     

    A filler by Network18 allowed users to win exciting prizes by guessing the number of logos that have featured in the Network18 TVC that plays during the game. Through this game, Homeshop18 has managed to maintain a balanced brand connect, whilst also making the game highly viral and addictive.

     

    Zafar Rais

    Said Piyush Bhargav, Vice President – Product and Marketing, HomeShop18.com: “Social Media is an extremely challenging medium in terms of achieving new numbers since the audience is quite selective. The only way to engage a picky audience is to offer something new and refreshing, every time. It’s this reason that led us to design an engaging game play – Land of Luck – which could stir a two-way communication rather than a run-of-the-mill gaming experience.” Said Zafar Rais, Founder & CEO of MindShift Interactive: “Innovation in marketing and its techniques is what makes or breaks a brand. On insights gained about consumer purchase trends, we built Land Of Luck, taking a shoppers belief in luck further and giving him an addictive platform to test his luck at all levels. In Social Media, we need to constantly evolve and that’s exactly what we continue to do.”

     

  • Sanjay Jaju, Secretary Department of Information and Communications, Govt of Andhra Pradesh asked delegates to move beyond BPO culture

    AppFest 2012: Exploring the ‘Apps’ economy

    By A Correspondent

     

    AppFest 2012, organised from December 13-15 in Hyderabad, provided an environment for developers and entrepreneurs to come together on a platform and leverage the enormous opportunity to move towards an ‘Apps Economy’. Given the strong base of mobile users, rapidly growing number of Internet users, availability of innovative minds and depth of resource pool, the opportunity is enormous.

     

    The three-day event that included Talkathon, Hackathon and Challengathon, attracted more than 400 developers.

     

    “The young generation should look at product development and creating world-class apps, while creating a culture that would build companies and create valuations.” This was the message given by Sanjay Jaju, Secretary, Department of Information and Communications, Government of Andhra Pradesh to the developers, while officially declaring open the Hackathon and Challengathon at the AppFest 2012, organised by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). “Product development is what eludes us despite all the advancements in ITeS,” he added, while exhorting the developers to try and build a mini Silicon Valley – by virtue of which Indians can create value, Intellectual Property, patents, and companies. He urged the developer community to break free from the existing value chain, and aspire to build world class products and companies.

     

    AppFest 2012 is the first step towards realization of this opportunity, and hopes to foster an environment where businesses, developers, platforms and networks are incentivized for their efforts. It is important that the first person and the last person in the value chain, – the innovators/developers/entrepreneurs, are amply rewarded.

     

  • The Augmented Reality application was soft launched on December 16 and recorded 250,000 downloads of the app on the first day

    Times of India launches ‘Alive’

    By A Correspondent

     

    The Times of India Group has soft-launched its Augmented Reality experience application, Alive. To its surprise, on the launch day of December 16th, the app was downloaded 250,000 times, leading to 300,000 augmentation views on a single day. This significantly surpassed internal estimates of about 15,000 downloads on day one. Augmented Reality is a technology that bridges the online and offline worlds using the mobile phone. It allows readers of the newspaper to interact with a print medium, and get access to rich media content, such as videos, photos, and polls. The Times of India’s Alive App boasts of being the first augmented reality service launched in India by a media company.

     

    On December 16, the most popular augmentation was a video interview between Arnab Goswami and Salman Khan, where Salman Khan sheds light on his darkest days when diagnosed with a disease. This story was augmented by 65,000 users over a four-hour period.

     

    Times Internet CEO Satyan Gajwani said, “We love bringing new technology solutions that add value to our users. Alive is exciting because it is a new dimension to a medium people are used to and comfortable with. We’ve thought hard about where AR actually adds value and where it’s just a gimmick, and we’re working to ensure that each augmentation brings something new to our readers.”

     

    BCCL Managing Director Vineet Jain, said, “Times of India believes in innovating constantly and out of the box thinking. This technology has existed for years as QR code readers, but no newspaper in the world has used it editorially to delight its readers. We are excited to bring a new level of interactivity to the newspaper every day, and there is more to come in the coming weeks. Times of India and Alive is just a small peak into how the future newspaper will look in the era of convergence.”

     

  • Assumption being, well, assumed to be the mother of all screwups, that's where the stumbling often begins

    The Anchor: 5 errors brands made on social media in 2012

    By Rajiv Dingra

     

    #1 The brands assumed that everything that works offline also works online. Just because you might have a sexy campaign offline, does not imply that it will remain sexy on social media.

     

    #2 Purely looking at marketing, and not looking at social media as a customer-relationship medium.

     

    #3 Focusing more on content more than communication. There is too much focus on gifts, contests and participation, with very little focus on what message is being passed through.

     

    #4 Inability to differentiate between customers and users. There are people who come to your fan page and ask serious queries about products. But we are chasing numbers of fans instead of individually replying to those customers.

     

    #5 Larger number of fans or spread of platforms does not mean presence on social media. Social media is as good as your last update, or campaign, or how it engages the fans. Social media is an ongoing daily effort to be responsive, interactive. Presence on platforms does not imply that you are doing social media.

     

    Constant innovation, and constant upgradation, is the need of the hour.

     

    Rajiv Dingra is CEO of WATConsult.com